


Candy for Cannibals

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Banter, Blanket Fic, Canadian Shack, Gray-Asexuality, Light Bondage, M/M, Mentions of Vore, No Sternritters arc, Non-Penetrative Sex, hollows are Weird, more banter than sex tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 07:30:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16888248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: "Garganta -- no-go?" Ichigo asked through a pained hiss as one of the chain links slipped and put pressure on his knuckles in a bad, creaking way."You think I haven'ttried?"Wow. Great. Fantastic. And now his belt was starting to slip -- just an inch, but a telling one. He didn't know it he was more concerned he was going to lose his hakama or lose Grimmjow inside this infinite hell of a dimension -- or more probably, get strangled as Grimmjow shifted to clawing his way up Ichigo's kimono instead. Okay, no need to worry about losing Grimmjow just yet.Note to self, murder Urahara. He didn't know what the man had been doing with that senkaimon -- from previous experience, something both inadvisable and criminal would have been the best bet. He didn't know since when the guy made under-the-table deals with Arrancars either. Probably ever since Aizen went down, if Ichigo had to lay another too-easy bet.Anyway Ichigo and surprise-I'm-not-dead Sexta Espada wouldn't have goddamn well startled each other into unleashing some really unadvisable attacks had they expected each other to be there at all, or at least had they been kept separate more thoughtfully.





	Candy for Cannibals

"You don't even deserve my fucking blade. I'm going to murder you with my _teeth_."

Ichigo gave the Arrancar hanging one-handed off his belt a long, unamused look, and lifted a sandaled foot half-seriously, just to make a point.

The Arrancar sneered back. "I fucking _dare_ you."

The chain at the end of Zangetsu's pommel was too short to wind securely and evenly around his hand; the links cut into his palm, not so much from the weight of two grown men as from the rush of non-energy trying to suck them away. At least the blade was well-stuck and didn't budge. Ichigo gritted his teeth. "Grimmjow. _Shut up_. If you can't make yourself useful then at least don't make it worse."

"Worse? _Worse?!_ " The noise he made next was nothing human, something in between a Hollow's dissonant screech and a jungle cat's snarl -- heavy on the nails-on-chalkboard, auditive-gitch side.

They'd been inside the precipice world for three minutes, getting thrown around like umbrellas in a tornado. A hundred and eighty seconds. In the outside world Urahara had had about... not even a second to notice yet, so they should expect outside intervention in... Ichigo couldn't do math dangling from the soul-sucking canyon that usually looked to him like a normal goddamn corridor with just a bit of a headwind. 

"Garganta -- no-go?" he asked through a pained hiss as one of the chain links slipped and put pressure on his knuckles in a bad, creaking way.

"You think I haven't _tried_?"

Wow. Great. Fantastic. And now his belt was starting to slip -- just an inch, but a telling one. He didn't know it he was more concerned he was going to lose his hakama or lose Grimmjow inside this infinite hell of a dimension -- or more probably, get strangled as Grimmjow shifted to clawing his way up Ichigo's kimono instead. Okay, no need to worry about losing Grimmjow just yet. 

Note to self, murder Urahara. He didn't know what the man had been doing with that senkaimon -- from previous experience, something both inadvisable and criminal would have been the best bet. He didn't know since when the guy made under-the-table deals with Arrancars either. Probably ever since Aizen went down, if Ichigo had to lay another too-easy bet. Maybe even before that.

Anyway Ichigo and surprise-I'm-not-dead Sexta Espada wouldn't have goddamn well startled each other into unleashing some really unadvisable attacks had they expected each other to be there at all, or at least had they been kept separate more thoughtfully. And now they wouldn't be trying to...

The gale winds of power whistled and rattled around him, a sudden whirling gust banging Ichigo hard against what had once been the floor of the passageway.

Squinting, he couldn't even see another end. Or a ceiling. Or anything. It was like--

"It's _breaking_ ," Grimmjow said with a quiet horror that turned Ichigo's guts to ice just from the _tone_ , even before he understood the words.

And then the world proved the man right.

Shaken loose, Zangetsu swung back in a wide arc, pulled askew by the gale. Before Ichigo's eyes the floor cracked into chunks -- dissolved around the edges, some odd not-darkness nothingness misting out. The same as the flickers often seen over the edge of the tunnel walls -- grasping tongues of not-fire, not-smoke, a devouring absence.

Yanked around by the drag on Zangetsu's wide blade, Ichigo's body whirled -- _tug_ \-- _**loosen**_ \--

Eyes showing white, he threw a leg back, a hand, desperate to hook -- _ow_ , ankle. " _Hold on!_ "

" _Fuckin' trying to!_ "

God. Five minutes earlier he'd been ready to put a sword through the man's chest. (Non-fatally, but. _Sword through the chest_.) The thought of watching him fly off to be lost forever, damned without recourse to this creepy hell revulsed him.

Ichigo was probably going to be lost too. But lost and alone would be worse.

They flew down the tunnel at breakneck speeds, tumbling along cracking not-ground, orbiting each other in uncontrollable flips and whirls. The gust shoving them along seemed to be trying to race the cracks, the breaking of the dimension's only safe passageway. It was losing.

Without a solid, non-draining ground to stand on, the precipice world was going to swallow them for good -- without a shelter they would collide straight-on with -- with _things_ , with --

He met Grimmjow's eyes, wide but eyebrows still scowling, teeth still bared. Behind the man's shoulder a bend in the tunnel waited to shipwreck them.

" _Your sword!_ " Ichigo yelled over the wind, left hand held out as far as he could, and hoped -- _begged_ that he would just--

Sword grip in his hand, smacking hard. Handsome face twisted in an animal snarl. Desperate, resentful trust, instant and unthinking.

Ichigo hoped it worked with two zanpakuto too, that it didn't _need_ four special sticks. Ichigo hoped he remembered enough of what his father had _done_ with his reiatsu, hoped his abysmal kido could--

" _Kaikyō Kotei!_ "

They hit. So did the blades, points first, one at each end of Ichigo's wide-open arms. For a second or ten Ichigo couldn't tell if the sudden drain to his reiatsu was the kido working or the dimension sinking its hooks into him -- couldn't tell where up was, where Grimmjow was, blind with shock, with the force of the impact.

Pantera felt _odd_ in his hand, a quiet shearing snarl of a vibration as his reiatsu flowed into it, letting it through but reluctantly so. Ichigo shook the dizziness out of his head, tried to flex his white-knuckled fingers enough for blood flow to start back up without letting go.

"You're kneeling on my _ribs_ , asshole."

"--Oh. Sorry. At least I didn't kneel in your hole?" he said thoughtlessly, looking down and finding Grimmjow sprawled on his back on the chunk of floor Ichigo had hooked, knees up and a foot propped up on Zangetsu's spine.

The Arrancar still had an arm wound around Ichigo's ankle under the wide sweep of his hakama leg, which Ichigo noticed when he tightened his hold enough to make it crack.

"Ow, _ow_ , quit it!"

Sneering, Grimmjow gave a last squeeze just to prove he could before he let go; he sat up in a slinking way that twisted his upper body as far as he could get it without falling off their foothold entirely.

"Fuck did you use?"

"Some kind of kido from my dad, but I'm not good at kido even when I've seen it more than once--"

"Once," Grimmjow muttered with venomous disbelief. "Fuckin' _once_." 

"--Yeah, yeah. We're lucky it worked at all, I know. It's supposed to kind of put up a barrier for the flow," he added, looking up to check -- yeah, wow, they had exactly the height of Zangetsu's pommel to sit up in, and he had to keep his arms up to keep a grip on each hilt. He shuffled his weight to crouch more comfortably, already wincing. It was going to get uncomfortable soon. "Which it is doing, obviously, but I don't think if it'll keep working if I stop touching either sword, Dad had to stay in contact too. So, uh. Any ideas for the next step? So far I've got 'Wait for Urahara'..."

"Bit too far a step. How do you avoid collisions first?"

"--Crap." Ichigo hurriedly checked their surroundings for more flying chunks of pseudo-ground; he saw some, spreading out after them in a wide spray pattern. Twisting his neck around he could barely glimpse the hole in the bend of the wall they'd crashed through, and then their chunk slowly rotated and blocked his view. "Uh. Catch another chunk, joust the rest away with it? Sorry, I don't think we can risk you taking Pantera back. Also if you touch anything with your actual reiatsu--"

Grimmjow made a short, irritated noise. "I know how this dimension works, Kurosaki."

"... Okay. Wasn't sure you'd ever come through here. You don't need to with a Garganta, right? You go through that other dimension instead."

The look Grimmjow leveled at him brought him short. Jaw tense, eyes cold.

"Hey," he said, voice low with rigid, held-back anger, "can you do me a favor and stop chattering at me like we're friends."

Down on one knee with his arms flung up and out as if hanging from a lopsided cross, Ichigo stared at the man sitting next to him, long legs stretched out and the jagged jaw of his hollow mask cracked open with the desire to bite.

"That fucking shopkeeper and I have a relationship that doesn't go any farther than exchanging goods for currency and not killing each other as long as we can provide that, and the relationship I have with _you_ is I still intend to murder your fucking ass one day when I'm not fucking _busy_ on a _fucking mission_ I actually _needed to complete!_ "

He ran a hand through utterly messy hair, shoving the blue mass backwards into a rough approximation of its usual shape. The gust had thoroughly ruined his 'do. Ichigo watched the frustration rippling over his face, still a little stunned by the outburst.

"You mean there was something more important than beating me?" He pinched his lips, not very seriously. "I'm kind of hurt."

"Shut the fuck up."

Sighing, Ichigo decided to let it drop. Grimmjow was so tense with frustration he was about to start vibrating; his sword sent rattles up to Ichigo's elbow that felt like trying to pet down the hackles on a buzzsaw. 

At any rate it seemed the spray of wall chunks went widening out, and none of the others were on their same trajectory. And there was so much _nothing_ out there. They probably weren't going to need to put a hand out of the shield to shove anything off. He started looking at the blades, thinking. His shoulders ached already; he switched knees and his toes lanced him with a flash of protesting joints.

"Hey, Grimmjow."

Even brooding and frustrated to the point of screaming, Grimmjow hadn't turned his back on him; his head lifted with animal swiftness. "Didn't I just _tell_ you--"

" _Hey,_ " Ichigo interrupted with a non-nonsense frown. "Take off my belt and tie it to my wrist and to Zangetsu's guard. Opposite ends of the belt if possible."

He had the pleasure of seeing the Arrancar completely floored for a whole and entire second. 

"--Reiatsu conduit. Huh."

"I hope so." His shinigami clothes were kind of part of his spiritual body, after all. _Kind_ of. Spirit constructs, at least. Ichigo shifted his weight again. His hands were starting to tremble. "Better hurry before I stiffen up enough to let go."

Grimmjow looked at him from the corner of his eye, eyebrows furrowed, glanced down at his belt. "Not sure I wanna put my hands there, shinigami."

"Wha-- _pfft_." Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, my novelty briefs are really waiting for a chance to assault your eyes. That's the kind of secret technique I go for."

Grimmjow was watching him, head a little tilted. An errant lock of hair barred his face. "What I meant was, not sure I wanna put my hands and not my claws. You _seriously_ want me to handle your tender underbelly?" 

Ichigo stared back, giving him a bored look. Grimmjow rolled onto his knees and suddenly he was kind of looming, a fey, vaguely unhinged look on his face. 

"You know what gravity would do to your guts? Hey, I guess it could be fun."

The look on his face and the pressure of his reiatsu said cold bloodlust, on-the-edge-of- _done_ ; under Ichigo's left hand Pantera said a very different play-with-living-mouse, see-how-it-squeaks. Ichigo leveled an unimpressed look at him and then pointedly, deliberately rolled his eyes.

" _Belt_ , Grimmjow."

A second, two, and then he sighed out the tension in his shoulders and sank onto his haunches, back curving loose. "I could tie it around your neck," he growled half-heartedly, fingers darting forward at arm's length to dig into the knot.

"You could," Ichigo said agreeably.

"... No, bad plan. I wanna strangle you I gotta use my hands. Better use it for a gag."

"Better indeed."

"So you can't talk me to death while I'm murdering you."

"Sounds like a plan."

Grimmjow paused, the undone ends of Ichigo's belt in each hand, the length still wound three times around his waist. "You're testin' my patience, shinigami."

He yanked it free sharply enough to give Ichigo a hint of rope burn through his hakama and the ends of his under-kimono and then went into a crouch by Zangetsu to fasten it, upper lip curled disdainfully.

"It was that or you lay on your side and I use you as a bench, to be honest. And my arms would still have fallen asleep eventually." 

"Mrgh."

Grimmjow didn't touch his skin at all when he tied the end around his wrist, just past the fullbring wristguard. The knot was tight enough to make sure it wasn't going to slip over Ichigo's hand, but not enough to constrict his skin at all. Ichigo wondered if he was going to have to tighten it later. Ideally as long as there was contact _somewhere_...

The hand on Zangetsu, now _that_ he felt. Mostly because Ichigo was also touching it, channeling through it; a small shock of hollow-unease, wild and rocky but unfocused instead of hunting-interested like _that_ reiatsu felt most times.

Grimmjow's hand was firm on the long handle of his sword, just over Ichigo's. He knotted the other end of the belt without flourishes and then sank back to his haunches, frowning at the sword for a second before he shuffled one step backwards and twisted at the waist to hover his hand around Pantera's blade, ready to snatch it up. 

"... Okay. Test away."

Ichigo lifted his index finger off Zangetsu's grip, then his little finger and his thumb, slowly unrolled his palm -- god, he had sweated under there. His middle and ring fingers stayed gripping awkwardly for another second as he tried to feel the flow of energy, and then he flicked his fingers open all at once, ready to grab again.

The reiatsu kept flowing. The shield didn't even waver.

"Oh thank fuck," Ichigo said, and sat all at once, listing pretty hard toward Pantera as he hung his weight from the hilt. "Ugh. Legs."

Pantera was pretty uncomfortable to lean against. He couldn't help feeling it would cut him three inches deep if he even brushed against an edge. But the change of angle on his shoulder, oh, even that was blissful. His right arm hung loose on his side as he sighed, eyes closing. The belt had more than enough slack not to pull even a little bit.

"Okay, now how to get your shitty hands off my fucking blade," Grimmjow grunted, glaring sideways at him. "You got any more belts?"

"Nope, sorry."

"What's those weirdass criss-cross things under your kimono then."

Ichigo pinched his lips. "They actually attach to the underlayer. Don't ask me. Weird new powers fusion thing." He looked down at his chest. The fullbring uniform _had_ merged strangely with the shinigami one, but it was kind of cool-looking; he didn't mind. The collar was neat. "My red rope thing doesn't really have an end and it's not gonna be a lot of slack but..."

Grimmjow frowned, leaning in to slip two fingers under it and tug. "Too thick. Gonna be a pain to knot."

He watched Ichigo for a long second, and Ichigo was about to ask when suddenly a single corner of the man's lips lifted. Ooh fuck.

"Whatever it is, no," Ichigo had time to say.

"Make _sure_ you grip Pantera _good and tight_ ," Grimmjow purred, eyeteeth positively glinting, and fisted his hand in Ichigo's kimono front to lift him off his ass.

Then he yanked the loose hakama down his legs.

Ichigo screeched in a manner uncomfortably reminiscent of his dad in his most ridiculous moments.

"Novelty briefs, huh," Grimmjow said, still smirking for all he was worth. "A filthy lie. I'm disappointed." Then he tore a long strip off the bottom of Ichigo's hakama leg.

"Oh, go to hell!" Ichigo grumbled back, flushing, and crossed his legs defensively. His briefs were white and extra-boring, just the way he liked them. "You're lucky I'm wearing those and not fundoshi like every single other shinigami guy I've ever had the shitty luck of being blinded by."

He watched the guy tear off another two stripes and braid them with an interesting amount of speed and dexterity, oddly disappointed when Grimmjow's shark smirk fell to be replaced by blank boredom, cold eyes, like he'd suddenly remembered he didn't wanna make friends. Ichigo had hoped the fundoshi crack would merit a response of some kind but Grimmjow managed to ignore him even as he tied his own sword to Ichigo's left wrist.

Zangetsu's belt was almost long enough to touch Pantera with that hand; not a bad range at all. The one tied to Pantera had less slack, but still enough that when he let the hilt go -- the reiryoku transfer worked -- he could gather his hakama back to him and wriggle back into it. 

He didn't have a belt for it any longer. With a sigh, he tore strips off the other leg and started working on a cloth braid of his own. Grimmjow didn't seem like he would take it well if Ichigo asked him to give a hand for that.

\--

"How long until that shitty shopkeeper fixes this."

"I'm pretty sure it's been something like three minutes for him."

"Mnrgh."

\--

"So what were you gonna do that I interrupted? That mission you were on."

"None of your business."

"Does it involve humans or souls or anything?"

"I _said_ , none of your bloody fucking business. Piss off."

\--

"Ugh, I'm so hungry..."

"Hey, great idea. Bite your tongue off and swallow it."

"... Thanks, you cured my problem. Probably world hunger too. You humanitarian, you."

"And eat a dick while you're at it."

"If you're offering yours, I don't think an appetizer will help much -- _ow_. Hey."

"You've been gettin' mouthier and I _don't_ like it."

"Sheesh, fine, fine. Wonder how you'd handle high school with Keigo and Shizuru..."

"By cratering the place. Next question. By which I mean shut the fuck up."

\--

It was getting colder. Ichigo didn't know if Grimmjow had noticed it; Ichigo himself hadn't before a whole day had gone by. At least Ichigo's hunger had hit a steady plateau and started wavering in and out instead of getting worse, almost like his body was just expecting to be hungry at this point and not feeling an actual lack.

The worst was the boredom. From time to time one of them would stretch his legs and arms, move in awkward crouches and low stances across their pitiful amount of real estate, fold and unfold stiff joints; but Grimmjow still didn't want to talk. Even his heavy-lidded gaze wandered over the nothingness and avoided Ichigo almost religiously. Ichigo was going to start doing really inadvisable stuff just because he couldn't deal at this point, like experimenting with their only bubble of safety...

Ugh.

"I'm gonna try to meditate," he announced. "Maybe Zangetsu will have something useful to say. Or hell, maybe White, even."

Grimmjow blinked slowly, brows furrowing just a touch; his eyes flicked in Ichigo's direction. Encouraging!

"White's my hollow. At least that's what Aizen called him." Ichigo shrugged. "White works. That bastard is pretty much just bleached-out me."

He hadn't expected Grimmjow to look at him at this point, or if he did he'd have expected a glare, but this was a puzzled frown more than anything else, a sharp, inquisitive look.

"Uh--"

"Is that a fucking _house_ ," Grimmjow said over him. Ichigo blinked dumbly and then turned around, vaguely expecting to be hit over the head as punishment for talking...

Yeah, it was a house, floating at a tilted angle from them -- or some kind of ancient shack at the very least, complete with not-ground in a patch around it.

"What the _hell_." Ichigo watched it for a moment, entirely baffled. "Maybe it's a remnant of... I don't even know what. That prison the shinigamis had going, maybe?"

"It could have been here entire eons. Who the fuck cares how."

Ichigo moved into a crouch, and then realized Grimmjow had too, that they were side by side balancing on their toes like they were about to jump. 

At an abandoned, floating shack. Okay, why not.

"We're investigating, right?"

"You even _need to ask_ , Kurosaki." Grimmjow shook his head in disgust, but his eyes were still intent on the walls of the slowly tumbling shack.

"Okay. Logistics? Do we want to abandon this and try the kido on the house? That's risky with all that turbulence..."

"Break the platform in two, widen the gap to widen the shield area. Think that'd fuck it up?"

Ichigo considered it for a long minute. The anchor point weren't the not-earth the swords were planted in, they were the swords themselves. But without something firm to keep them at a certain distance from each other... At least his dad had managed a pretty big area, so it wasn't impossible to give themselves a bigger space. On the other hand Isshin _was_ good at kido, and he hadn't been moving things around after he had set them. 

Ichigo leaned in front of Grimmjow and caught a grip on Zangetsu's hilt, pushed slow and careful, sliding the blade farther out through one inch of rock. The shield held, the glimmering veil of its surface not even shivering. Yeah, it might work.

"We need more rope," he concluded with a sigh.

Well, the shack was still pretty far away. They had time.

\--

In the end his hakama was reduced to pleated shorts that unveiled his knees and over half his thighs, and he lost a whole sleeve to the shoulder to boot. But they had enough rope to surround the whole shack. After that it was just a matter of...

"If you aim wrong again--"

"I have never aimed wrong once in my fuckin' life!"

"Oh, you mean it was your plan to send us twirling around? God, I want to throw up already."

"Throw up and choke on it if that'll shut you up! There's turbulence, so what, it's still the right direction. You fuckin' pansy. How do you even survive if a little spin can fuck you up that bad."

"You say, fingers knuckle-deep in the ground."

"It's to keep myself from putting them knuckle-deep between your ribs, now shut up, I'm trying to aim."

Grimmjow loosed another fast little flash of a Cero -- giving up control and contact a fraction of second before it crossed the protective barrier that stopped the dimension from hooking into their reiatsu and bleeding them dry. Kicked forward, the rock tumbled closer to the corner of the house... and passed it entirely. 

"Aw hell, Grimmjow--"

Another shot, utterly concentrated, and they blasted back in the other direction, spinning right at the open door of the shack. Ichigo threw himself down flat as the top of the door tried to decapitate him.

They probably sent the shack off course when they crashed into the far wall, but at least it didn't disintegrate upon impact; Ichigo may have bitched up a storm if that had happened.

"Alright! Hold the kido, I'm movin' Pantera."

A quick, precise punch splintered the chunk of floor at the end the blade was stuck on, separated it from the rest; Grimmjow pushed it out toward the nearest wall, wedged it chunk and all somehow in between two missing and-or rotten out floorboards. He crawled back the other way, Ichigo dodging low to allow him to pass over him, then went to move Zangetsu to the rafters on the other end.

And now there were still corners of the room the ovoid shield didn't touch, but most of the floor was covered, and more importantly, they could stand up in over half of the house. Groaning his relief, Ichigo hopped off their old sailboat and straightened up.

"My back's ruined," he muttered, kneading the area over his kidneys with both hands.

"That's nice," Grimmjow said, and didn't bother faking sympathy. He straightened up too, rolled his head on his shoulders until tendons creaked, then started rounding out his back, palms forward and fingers wide apart to stretch his hands and wrists. 

"You look like you need a scratching post," Ichigo observed. Grimmjow caught him in the hip with a solid sideway kick that pushed him almost to the wall, and right to the edge of the kido shield. 

"I've never heard that joke before, meatbag."

Rubbing his hip, Ichigo sighed, and then stepped back into Grimmjow's space and kicked him back. "It was an observation, asshole." 

He wasn't even made of meat right now. He supposed that would be nitpicking.

"... Kick me again and I'm going to strangle you with the ropes." 

Ichigo snorted. Right now they trailed all over the floor, long enough that they didn't even lift off the floor until the ends. Tripping on them during a brawl and tearing them free would still be bad. "You started it."

"Hrmph." Grimmjow's nasty look slid away; he turned his shoulder to Ichigo, kept stretching, ignoring him pointedly. Still not to the point of turning his back, Ichigo noticed. Sigh.

... It was really cold in here when he stopped moving around, huh. He started looking in the corners for something to do.

\--

"You done playing housewife, then?"

Hands on his hips, Ichigo frowned over his shoulder. "Excuse me?"

Grimmjow had been napping in a corner of the shack for the last.. Ichigo wasn't sure. Two hours? Three? Hands loosely crossed over the hole in his belly, legs stretched out before him, eyelids mostly closed. Looking totally fine with the temperature and the hard, rough planks under him.

"You're excused. What the fuck is that, though, is it supposed to be a bed?"

"Oh, shut up," Ichigo groused. It was... rags stuffed in what was left of his outer kimono and an old blanket he'd hung out to flap in the current outside, to get the centuries of dust out, on a pallet of old reeds and some dead grass from the patch of ground outside the shack. He'd fetched them with a splintered plank like giant chopsticks, a ridiculous and exhausting exercise. Not worth the effort, but moving around had kept him warmish and busy.

Now, though, he needed to sleep badly enough that it almost looked inviting.

But not yet.

At some point the shack had been divided into separate rooms by sliding doors, mostly paper on light wooden trellises; now the doors rested cracked and paper poked full of holes against a wall. He took them anyway to build a little lean-to shelter over his bed. 

"What the hell, Kurosaki. A hut now? Bunny hutch? What."

"It's _cold_ ," Ichigo said pointedly back, trying to get one of the doors to stick in a wood knot on the floor so it wouldn't slide off. "Heat dissipates. You make a smaller space, heat stays in closer to you."

"Wuss," Grimmjow said -- his voice coming from much closer. Ichigo was trying to balance the second door on top of the first with just a strip of kimono cloth to tie them together; he didn't bother turning. Of course the jerk wanted to socialize _now_.

"Uh huh. You're fearsome. Got it. All sorts of temperatures runs from you. Hot, cold, all beneath your notice..."

"Hueco Mundo is mostly a bigass desert where the only light and heat come from a single moon," Grimmjow said, easy and distracted. "Apart from Las Noches where everything was always nice and toasty because Aizen was a fucking priss with delicate sensibilities. So yes, actually. You pussies and your little tempered climates." 

Ichigo enjoyed the new mood enough that he didn't immediately realize where the voice came from. Then he went to put up the last panel of his shelter down as a door and found that asshole on hands and knees in the middle of his new bed, looking down at it consideringly.

"... Grimmjow, _no_."

Grimmjow sent him an insolent look from under sky-blue lashes and let himself sprawl flank-down across the whole of it.

"Ugh. Stinks of mildew."

Mouth open to yell back, Ichigo was suddenly hit with a vision of the future. 'Get out!', 'Nah nah nah you can't make me', snapping back and forth, accomplishing nothing. Grimmjow sprawling some more to piss him off knowing they couldn't fight it out without ruining the futon, the shelter, and the whole barrier that kept them safe. Smug disdain until Ichigo ended up curled into a pathetic ball at his feet under the scraps of cloth he could pull up and then getting 'accidentally' kicked all night, or day, or whatever time of the day it was supposed to be in this murky, endless twilight.

Yeah, he'd pass on that. He snatched up Grimmjow's ankle and threw him straight out of the shelter, smoothly stepping around his flying body. Then he sat, the braided ropes floating as they trailed his wrists. 

Grimmjow landed in a roll and bounced back up into a fighting stance but by then Ichigo was already putting his legs under the pseudo-blanket. The straw was really uncomfortable against his bare legs. God he missed his full-length hakama. The shredded shorts version did _not_ hold up.

"Good _night_ , Grimmjow," he said, ignoring the threat in those fists utterly.

"Did you just fucking _throw_ me? I'm going to murder you in your sleep."

"Uh huh. Good luck powering the kido you don't know." He yawned, moved the panel into position to block the last opening, and lay down. That goddamn jerk, deciding to needle him the second Ichigo found something else to do... Couldn't he have wanted to bicker any time before.. Hmmmnh... 

It really did stink of mildew. He was asleep five seconds in.

\--

Another five minutes and he was awake again, eyes gritty and mind dumb with confused sleepiness. It took him an embarrassing long time to pick up on the reiatsu prickling at him.

"No murderin'," he muttered, and turned on his other side.

" _Rope_ , you fucking dumbass," someone said from somewhere out of his cocoon, but he wasn't sure why he should be concerned. The cloth against his legs was frozen. He curled tighter into the weak warmth of his chest and sank away.

\--

Probably... Probably that hadn't been a full night. Just a sleep cycle, three or four hours tops. Ichigo wasn't sure what had woken him -- a gust of displaced, fresher air through the pseudo-blanket's gaps, maybe, ruffling his hair. A creak of ancient wood.

 _Wait, the panel was_ \--

... Not open. Huh.

Well then. He shuffled around a little; the reeds and rags mattress had bunched up weird in the night. If he could stick his shoulder in this dip and curve his back enough past that bump... At least his legs were warm.

... His legs were actually warm. What the hell. Mostly along the back.

When he managed to talk himself into raising his head he wasn't even entirely surprised to see the shadowed blue of Grimmjow's head and the line of his shoulder, his back rounded into the bend of Ichigo's knees.

"Whathfffuck, Grimmjow. Thought you wernn' cold."

"I'm not cold, asswipe," he muttered back, without even bothering to lift his head, resting heavy on his folded arm. "I'm feeding."

"Oh. Okay." Ichigo closed his eyes again. 

Opened them.

" _What_." 

Ichigo rolled his head back, his shoulders -- couldn't shift his hips as well because of the asshole man-cat taking up space behind his legs. 

Actually Ichigo was kind of pressing his ass cheeks on his shoulder blades. Huh. Weirdass guy.

He kicked back experimentally; his heel impacted with Grimmjow's spine, and the edge of his hole a bit. Grimmjow growled half-heartedly.

" _Feeding_ , man? By sneaking in _cuddles_? What the hell, you can't say that and not explain."

Growling again, more annoyed this time, Grimmjow rolled onto his hands, pushed himself up to glare. Ichigo shuffled around on his back and propped himself up on one elbow to blink blearily. The guy looked just as half-asleep and frustrated about that as Ichigo did.

"You're shedding reishi all over the fucking place just by _breathing_ , asshole. Most of it spilling in a big great waste, too."

"So what, you're just... absorbing it?" Ichigo blinked slowly. "Wow. Uh. You're welcome...?" 

"Don't talk like I'm gonna survive on that pitiful amount. It's huge compared to what most humans shed, but it's not even worth a single whole soul as a snack. It'll just stave off starvation... Huh."

Thoughtful look. Ichigo did not know if he liked that.

"... Hmm."

"Grimmjow?"

The guy gave a slow, heavy-lidded blink, lazy and unreadable. 

And then he -- he. Ichigo stiffened all over, eyes wide open and hands raised with awkward uncertainty to defend from something that wasn't an attack, didn't feel _anything_ like an attack, and still tripped his instincts as--

Moving over him, hands on both sides of his hips, body low, too close. Head low, too, hair a messy fall of blue across his face, what was left of his mask, his heart-stopping eyes.

Body heat, its warmth lingering, not like the heated here-then-gone wash of battle. _Too close_.

Ichigo pressed a forearm across Grimmjow's collarbone, panicking a tiny little bit. "Okay, okay, that's close enough. That's too close actually. Personal space. A great human concept, I'd love to -- _whoa what the fuck!_ "

A long body weighing at least two dozen more pounds in muscles than his own had just slumped right onto the whole length of his side. Not crushing him, but the kimono top he was using as a blanket was pinned under Grimmjow's weight; he couldn't roll free without really _shoving_.

It wasn't anything like an attack; he had no clue how to respond, brain slowed down by confusion and embarrassment. Grimmjow caught the cloth braid that linked his wrist to Zangetsu and used it to tug his arm out from between them, casual, and then rested his head on Ichigo's bunched-up pillow, the pointed end of his chin digging a bit into Ichigo's shoulder.

"Hm, yeah." Grimmjow's eyes were actually fucking closed, like he, Mister Wary, was actually certain there was nothing to fear. "Gettin' more like this." 

Ichigo's voice went embarrassingly high. "What the _fuck,_ Grimmjow, you're on _top of me_."

"No I ain't, and I ain't gonna be. You're a bony motherfucker." He stretched his legs a little, yawned -- then lifted his head just enough to smirk at point blank range. "Thanks for suggesting cuddles, Kurosaki. Mighty kind of you."

"... You ever think about how I might be the one to murder you in your sleep?"

"Mm." Grimmjow gave another slow blink, less thoughtful than dismissive, and then put his head down again. "Nah."

Ichigo considered kicking him straight off. He'd always hated other people on his bed, only exceptions being his sisters and Inoue. But one, this wasn't his actual bed, and two, Grimmjow was a _furnace_.

Ichigo also tended to be really awkward about physical displays of affection such as hugs and -- well. Cuddling. But. One, this really wasn't a physical display of affection.

Two, furnace.

He was such an asshole though, it rankled to let him win that one. 

_But furnace_. Uuuugh.

Ugh. Okay. Fine. So long as he didn't start moving around. Ichigo was going to just... deal with it. 

Grimmjow's reiatsu was a prickly little bitch though. Really... distracting... what with the... mm. Spikes and... sparks. Things. Yeah.

He was never going to fall back asleep at this rate, was Ichigo's last coherent thought before falling asleep.

\--

Morning was not really a thing in the precipice world and even less surrounded by paper screens; it was just the same grayish, vaguely purple-tinged twilight. Ichigo's head felt muzzy and slow, not so much sleepy as just lazy, ready to doze off for another hour just because. The constant low-grade reiryoku drain kept him slightly fatigued; but he was comfortable enough on his back, finally warm and his bare legs shielded from the straw by... huh, he had his knees draped over Grimmjow's thigh. 

Comfy. But that wasn't what... 

"You drooling on me?" he mumbled, turning his head an inch. Grimmjow's eyes were closed -- thick blue lashes obscuring those startling green marks like fancy wings of eyeliner. But his mouth was pressed lips open to Ichigo's shoulder, teeth absently worrying at a fold of white cloth. 

"Mngh."

His under-kimono was all damp with drool. Gross. Ichigo bounced his shoulder a little to dislodge him. 

He really should have expected to get bitten. "Ow!" He slapped at the guy's shoulder by reflex, and was bitten again -- this time not only with his normal human teeth, but also with the fucking mask somehow.

"Fuck you doin'?" Grimmjow rumbled, half-asleep and already pissed off. Though he didn't bother lifting his head just yet, his eyes were cracked open in threatening slits.

Ichigo glared back. "You're chewing on me with your goddamn _hollow maw_ and you ask what _I'm_ doing? No, okay, that's where I draw the line. I don't mind you snacking on my spare reiryoku but if you're trying to draw blood with that bear trap on your face then you'll just have to starve."

Grimmjow made a disgusted noise and closed his eyes again. "I don't eat blood, what the fuck would I do with it. It's just liquid meat, what's the point."

"... Well, good."

A flicker of a smirk. "Now, as seasoning..."

" _No_."

"Cheapskate."

Ugh. 

At least he seemed to be in a good mood. A good, asshole mood. Apparently bothering Ichigo helped. Sighing, Ichigo closed his eyes again and shifted to make himself comfortable. There really was nothing to do in here but sleep and wait for Urahara to get them out, and he wasn't looking forward to moving around in the cold for no reason when he stopped being able to catch up on his sleep debt.

It took about three minutes for him to feel the testing press of teeth on his shoulder again, the big bad Arrancar mouthing at his under-kimono and the flesh underneath like a toddler with his blankie.

"What'd I say, Grimmjow."

"Not to use my mask," the man replied, eyes still closed. "Am I?"

Ugh. "Guess not."

It felt... not that bad actually. Warm pressure, not anywhere near painful. A bit... shivery, when a gust of warm breath heated the damp cloth.

He was starting to travel around, up the outer curve of Ichigo's shoulder in tiny increments, just mouthing at him. So _weird_.

Weirdly soothing, actually. Like... companionship, cuddles -- real ones, with his sisters, safe and close, his body relaxed. Thoughtlessly, Ichigo felt across his own chest for Grimmjow's arm, kinda folded between them, gave his wrist an absent pat. 

Left his hand there, vaguely aware that there was a line. There was a line between normal-weird with... not friends per se, but. Maybe kind of friends. Battle friends. Something he wasn't with Grimmjow yet, but could see happening in the future, if they kept meeting and sparring where Ichigo didn't have any weaker friends to worry about ending up collateral damage. Anyway. The kind of normal-weird he'd let Renji or Ikkaku get away with. Or Keigo. 

He could see Keigo cuddling up to him and nibbling sadly on his shirt _disturbingly_ well, actually.

There was a line approaching rapidly, one he shied away from thinking about until Grimmjow reached the high, stiff collar of his Fullbring gear and bit it, growling very quietly, and then he realized they might have crossed it a while back.

It occurred to him suddenly to wonder if this was making out. Were they making out? Well -- was Grimmjow making out with him at least, because Ichigo wasn't really doing anything. No, wait, there hadn't been any kissing, or even skin contact really--

"Your reiryoku kinda speeds up with your pulse," Grimmjow observed lazily, and then bit lightly at his jugular. Ichigo inhaled sharply through his nose, jaw clenched shut to make sure no noise would escape. Oh. _Fuck_.

"Uh. What are you... Necking? Feeding? What?"

"What," he grouched back, nose still pressed to the gap under Ichigo's jawbone, breathing right against his skin. "You're lettin' me right at your throat and you think I'm not gonna take you up on it."

"Yeah, but it's not like you're going to tear it out," Ichigo said without even needing to think about it. This was the calmest, least hostile he'd ever felt Grimmjow's jagged mess of a spiritual pressure.

"... Probably not. Still nice to think about."

Ichigo blinked slowly at what passed for their ceiling. That sounded so carelessly sincere he was suddenly entirely certain it was truth -- not deliberately flirting, not making a play for Ichigo's chastity, just a well-fed predator daydreaming about the hunt.

Now he felt kind of bad for the tingles. Because damn if being nibbled at _there_ didn't feel really nice, in a not-very-platonic way.

In a... _very not_ platonic way.

He shifted his legs, bringing his knees up -- ugh, cold air, and Grimmjow's legs were in the way of bringing his heels closer. Grimmjow made a vaguely annoyed noise and shifted lower, thoughtfully chewing his way down the bands of armored cloth around his throat.

"That a chubby, Kurosaki?"

Ichigo made a mortified sound and shoved at his shoulder. " _Oh my god_."

"Didn't know your face could get this red," the asshole mused, propped up on one elbow to watch him, hair tousled all over his face and across his eyes and a smirk slowly spreading on his asshole mouth.

"I'm gonna punch you in the face," Ichigo threatened back, trying to shift his knees higher. "You're the one who -- ugh! I'm seventeen. It's _normal_."

"Is that what your daddy told you last time he noticed," Grimmjow purred, eyes gleaming evilly. Ichigo punched him in the shoulder good and sharp.

"Oh god. Foul! Foul. I'm gonna _murder_ you. For real. I'm not even into you, it's just my ne--"

He closed his mouth, a beat too late. 

"Your neck, huh." Grimmjow shrugged -- and then flopped right on top of him, eyes hooded with amusement as Ichigo flailed, torn between hitting him and touching Grimmjow's warm, muscled, insistently present body the least he could possibly get away with. 

Oh god. Belly to belly. He was going to burst into flames and die.

"Okay, _that's_ a move. You're making a move. What the hell. Grimmjow, what the _hell_."

"Not really."

Ichigo was so dumbfounded, so angered by that stupid fucking reply that he actually stopped trying to look anywhere but at his face and glared straight on.

"But if your body does things, I don't care. Already knew you were a freak. Go ahead."

Ichigo opened his mouth, closed it. Stared. Swallowed back the first dozen replies that came -- angered, offended, mortified, confused, all of those. This... was pretty weird, wasn't it? It was.

"Grimmjow?" he said cautiously, weighing his words. His face still burned but he pushed his awareness of that aside, brows furrowing. "Do you, uh. Not do sex?"

Grimmjow gave a slow, mocking blink, a heavy-lidded stare. "You asking if I'll fuck you? Yeah, sure, it ain't the sword I actually want to stab you with but I could make do."

Ichigo punched him in the clavicle from above.

" _Ow_! You little _fucker--_ "

They struggled for a few seconds; Ichigo trying to hit him again and Grimmjow straddling him straight up, trying to catch his fists, and then there was a tug at his wrist--

" _\--The conduits!_ " Ichigo yelped.

Grimmjow's hand whipped closed around his wrist, pinning down the cloth rope connecting him to Pantera before it could slip undone. He shifted to his other knee, tugged the rope free of his weight, his eyes just a tiny little bit wide. "Okay, no more roughhousing. Fuck." Gleaming eyes, a smirk. "Or no fuck."

"...Oh, shut the _hell_ up." Ichigo sank back into his pseudo-pillow resentfully, avoiding his eyes. Asshole was _still_ straddling his belly as he fixed the loosened knot, and Ichigo's nascent chubby had taken the wrestling as encouragement to transform into a semi with aspiration of grandeur; it was a wonder Little Ichigo wasn't goosing him yet.

He sneaked a mortified look down at Grimmjow's crotch, but the cloth of his pants was absolutely devoid of tent. Ugh. Awesome. Epic. Fantabulous.

It would have been different if they had both reacted. Ichigo being the only one to read the situation as sexual made him into a pervert.

"Aww, don't you make that face, you poor little deprived baby." Grimmjow leaned back in, both ropes in hand to guide Ichigo's hands over his head and pin them there. He leaned down, leering, the jaw of his mask open in a shark smile. "You promise not to squirm too much, I could give you that dicking after all."

Ichigo flushed hot, hotter than before. Grimmjow wasn't even holding him by the wrists; he was holding the _ropes_. If Ichigo pulled as hard as he wanted he would tear through the cloth.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to kick Grimmjow in the head or... Or. Not. Let him proceed. His stomach was in a knot; his skin felt too tight, too hot, but his hands and feet were cold.

"I, uh. That. No?"

His voice went strangled-high at the end. Nosing at his jaw, Grimmjow stopped moving, leaned back a little. "No?" 

His face was a little startled, but far more intent than dismayed. Ichigo breathed out.

"That's kinda. Terrifying? I mean. Touching feels good. But I'm not really up for -- we don't have _lube_."

Grimmjow blinked, arched an eyebrow.

"Lube!" Ichigo shouted, flushing anew. "The stuff you use so you don't tear it up and bleed all over the place?!" 

"... Right, forgot you were _delicate_." 

He shifted his seat backwards and for a second Ichigo thought he meant to -- to grind on -- to maybe let _Ichigo_ \--

Then he flopped on his side on the mattress, and rolled onto his back, half on straw and half on the planks. He had let go of the ropes; their only point of contact left was at the knee. Ichigo lowered his arms, and couldn't tell if he was sad this moment had ended or not. It had been -- really scary, but also. If he'd managed to take that fear and turn it into pleasure, into -- into _trust_ , it would have been spectacular.

He would probably have freaked out before they got to that point, though. Realistically.

"I don't want you dicking me down either, by the way."

"Oh. Okay. Cool."

"Saw you thinking about it. Not happening."

"Yeah, okay," Ichigo agreed mindlessly, still reeling from the whole thing.

Was it over? Something in his chest fell like a deflating soufflé. His dick wobbled back down onto his belly, not quite convinced just yet; he felt cold. Where were his blankets? Ugh.

"So... No sex." _Ugh_. He winced at himself. Man, the ceiling sure was fascinating. "Sorry. Never mind. I'm just kinda... Hormones."

"Noticed." Ichigo could _hear_ him smirking.

"You're gonna hold it over my head for the next century, aren't you," he said, depressed.

"The next century? Bitch, I'm tempted to let you live another _millenium_ just for this."

He actually honest-to-god _cackled out loud_. Ichigo kicked out. Grimmjow lifted his foot out of the way, turned his head on the mattress with his chin lifted up just so he could smirk at him, eyes heavy with mocking sensuality.

Then he flipped onto his hands and knees over Ichigo, again, grabbed Ichigo's chin in one hand, leaned in all teeth out. It was actually remarkably similar to the crazy grins he often sported in battle.

"Hey."

" _What_."

"Say you want me."

"Oh, fuck y-- go to hell."

Still snickering, the fucking asshole leaned in to nip at Ichigo's jaw, tugging the skin between his teeth for a second, and then actually _licked the bite mark_. Growling, Ichigo fisted both hands in his hair and bit him back right on the mouth.

Then Grimmjow made a little approving noise, and it kind of... devolved. Ichigo's angry grasp loosened without his conscious input -- his bites, too, lips opening, mouths pressed wetly together and oh, yeah, okay, _that_ was making out. All... slick tongues and satisfied little sighs, Grimmjow mouthing at him the exact same way he'd been doing to his neck earlier, slow and self-indulgent.

He'd thought Grimmjow would be angrier about the hair-grabbing. They kept kissing, Ichigo shivering when Grimmjow's larger hand kneaded its way from shoulder to the side of his neck, thumb briefly pressing on his windpipe before the half-hearted threat turned into rubbing at the little divot in his clavicle. Then he went on to kissing Ichigo's temple, his ear -- oh lord -- and back down his neck, all careful teeth, and lips, and _tongue_.

"Hey."

Ichigo groaned a protest, forced his eyes open. This had better not be another dickery, he was enjoying himself here--

"Take this off."

Oh.

Uh.

Ichigo craned his neck to give the straps criss-crossing his chest under the under-kimono a chagrined look. "Would you believe I've never had to take it off before. I always just went back into my body."

"... That is the _lamest_ thing I've ever heard." Grimmjow slipped two fingers under them, gave a little flash of reiatsu; the straps sheared in two like he'd used his blade. Then he, oh, fuck, hand traveling down, _mouth_ traveling down, Ichigo was going to die if what he thought was happening actually happened.

Well. Die again. Probably. Maybe. Dying wasn't so bad for this, was it. Oh, wow. His whole body was alive with tingling heat, with a shivering need he had never felt so spread out. He knew 'horny', or he had thought he did; this was a whole different level of magnitude.

A sword-rough hand palmed down his belly, covered his crotch, pressed down with no hesitation across Ichigo's still-clothed erection. Ichigo bucked into it, knee-jerk reflex, choked on a moan.

"... Scars I gave you are all gone, huh."

Ichigo shivered; the rough voice came from just over his exposed stomach, a hot breath washing over his skin.

"Well," he stuttered out, a little dizzy from the closeness, from the hand still slowly massaging the hardening line of his dick through his clothes. "It _has_ been a while. Two years?"

Grimmjow leaned in, growling so light it was almost more of a purr -- but the ragged, biting edge of his reiatsu in the air was unmistakable; unhappy. "Yours is still here," he said, so quiet Ichigo had to strain to hear it -- and it was, he could see the top of it in the gape of Grimmjow's black shirt. " _Pisses me off_." 

He bit down, just between Ichigo's navel and the jut of his hip bone. Ichigo arched off the bed, got his hips pinned back down with two rough, long-fingered hands. 

"Oh -- fuck. Are you gonna -- Grimmjow? Are you seriously--"

"Give you new scars?" Grimmjow replied with his mouth right on Ichigo's hip bone, and Ichigo barely had the brains left over to wonder if he had misunderstood him deliberately or if he really was that unconcerned about the relative importance of blowing his most hated enemy. "Soon as we're out of here, you can bet your ass on it. I'm gonna cero three layers of your face right off."

"... Betting my ass haha..." 

Ichigo whined, laughed, something in between. He'd been impaled by swords that felt less tortuous than this uncertainty, this expectation. 

"You're a kinky little shit, huh."

"I wasn't _offering!_ " Ichigo sputtered. "I was _freaking out_ because how the hell is this my lif--mmfh."

Insolent blink, barely visible over the hand pressed to Ichigo's mouth. "I was fucking with you. That's not even a zero point five on the scale of freakiness as hollows go. In fact it's fucking vanilla."

"Uuugh--" 

" _But see_ , if I can choose between fighting and fucking you I'm always gonna choose fighting you, and I'm not betting on anything that'll make you hold back for fear that there'll be nothing left to fuck afterwards. I would _pulverize_ you," he concluded, his heavy look clear on how insulted he would feel should that happen.

His face was kind of right next to Ichigo's straining, flushed dick, though, so Ichigo didn't have very much brainpower to wonder if he should tell Grimmjow he was never gonna fight him to kill either way.

"We _clear_ , Kurosaki?"

Ichigo kicked out. "Will you fucking do _something about my dick already?!_ " He threw his hands in the air, then raked them through his hair, head thrown back so he wouldn't have to keep looking at that goddamned tease anymore. "I swear I'll still respect you in the morning so just blow me already!"

Once again he should have expected to get bitten; once again, he didn't, and yelped, high and sharp. The incisors nip turned into full-mouthed chewing on the inside of his thigh, molars leaving indents into his skin. It hurt in a way that shot straight to his crotch in a very confusing way -- deep muscular pressure and wet heat.

"--Will you stop _gnawing_ \--"

His hands were fisted in blue hair. That didn't seem to do anything to stop Grimmjow from leaving a series of bites up and down the inside of his thigh, to turn his head and exhale _right over Ichigo's balls_ and _ignore them totally_ to start marking up the other leg. Ichigo tried to make himself tug and couldn't quite get there, like that would be too rude somehow. He growled his frustration but it turned into a needy whine somewhere in the middle, a series of half-swallowed swear words. So close. So _close_ to where he really needed it.

"Do I have to beg, is that what you want, oh my god, _fuck_ you--"

A hand pressed on his mouth again, a bit against his nose, not careful but not punitive either. Just -- _'dear lord, shut up.'_ Ichigo groaned against his palm and closed his eyes tight, fingers clenching and releasing in Grimmjow's hair.

It was more of the same mouthing at Ichigo's skin as it had been over his shoulder and neck, only there was more gnawing -- not made to cut into his skin or tear anything off, just... 

It was weird, right? It was weird. Like a dog with his rawhide toy. Felt so good though, so insistently physical. Nothing awkward or fleeting about it, not a whisper of inexperienced nerves. 

His mouth opened against the heel of Grimmjow's hand, and he bit too, bit and sucked at the flesh under that skin in nothing but reflex mimicry, a hunger for more sensations. He didn't really know how to touch a man, especially one who seemed not to want to be touched; but this he could do. 

Grimmjow rumbled out a laugh against the tender, bruised flesh of his inner thigh. "Pfft, you call those _teeth_ , Kurosaki?" He pressed his free hand against Ichigo's dick once again but this time it was skin on skin; Ichigo's hips rocked up hard. Oh, _fuck_.

Lips on him, finally, damp and oh so slightly chapped, lips mouthing at the base of his dick as the rest of it was pinned against his belly by a rough hand -- sword calluses pressing up right under the exposed head, trapping his erection -- pressing up and releasing in a firm, borderline rough --

He came two minutes into it in toes-curling waves, the leg Grimmjow wasn't lying on coming up by reflex, his upper body rearing straight off the bed as his stomach muscles clenched. Vaguely through the buzzing in his ears and his own gut-deep moan he could hear the Arrancar laughing. 

Ichigo fell back on the mattress like a puppet with cut strings, limp and sweaty-hot, baffled at his own body. It had been so good -- for so little touching? Not even a real blowjob, just. Just a man _kissing_ his shaft, not even taking it in, just... 

The lone surviving kimono sleeve flopped across his face. "Clean that up so I can come back up, Kurosaki," Grimmjow ordered, lazy and satisfied. Ichigo obeyed mechanically, patting splatters of come off his stomach and ribs. His body was still coming down, shivering through with heat and tired pleasure. 

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, Sexta Espada, was some kind of secret dick magician. Ichigo _knew_ he was a teenage virgin but that had been embarrassingly easy...

And now he had the guy crawl- _gliding_ up Ichigo's body and slumping right in his previous spot, bonelessly pleased. Ichigo shivered again, softening penis twitching half-heartedly. Damn if the full body contact didn't feel really nice still. 

Oh, and now he was rooting around in Ichigo's neck again. Oh. Right. Ichigo enjoyed it guiltily for a minute, near purring from the attention and the afterglow, then ran a cautious hand through sky-blue hair, combing it back from Grimmjow's temple. Grimmjow broke away from his skin just far enough for Ichigo to see him arching an eyebrow. 

"Lemme up, I want to go down on you."

They were pressed so close it was impossible for Ichigo to miss the twitching muscles, the brief moment of tension. He frowned, baffled. 

"What? I'm not going to be _that_ bad."

Grimmjow pushed himself up on his hands over Ichigo to stare him down, blue eyes sharp with wary offense. "You're not putting anything of mine between your _teeth_ , Kurosaki."

Ichigo stared back for a long moment, trying to figure out what the hell --

 _\--oh_.

Mouth open to taste, fangs testing -- his neck, his jugular, his fucking _thigh arteries_.

"... Were you pretending you were _eating me_ , you asshole?" 

He tried to push himself up on his elbows; there was no space, and when he tried to push at Grimmjow's chest to gain some the guy just smirked point-blank range and gave his jaw a good nip.

"You liked it though."

"I didn't know you were having cannibal daydreams!"

"Hollow," he pointed out, smirking, and nipped a little farther down. Growling his irritation, Ichigo turned his head into him, nipped back -- got the mask; the asshole snorted loudly, clacked its murder-teeth a couple of times pointedly.

Ichigo's offense flipped itself around into sudden laughter. God, the whole thing was just ridiculous.

"This is the _creepiest_ kink, I hope you know." Simmering down, he relaxed into the bunched-up, awkward mattress, crooked the man a rueful smile that made him blink. "Are you really good like this? I wouldn't even know how to eat you, my hollow's never eaten anyone and I don't really have his instincts when he's asleep like that. Your man-bits would probably be safe."

Grimmjow snorted, rolled his eyes as he settled on his side right against Ichigo's side, head propped up on his hand to look down at him. "Still a real turn-off."

"Okay," Ichigo sighed, tugging his underwear back up. "Okay, oral is out." Disappointing. He'd been kind of... It wasn't like he had spent a lot of time in his life to wonder what it would feel like to have a dick in his mouth, but...

He could feel Grimmjow against his hip, just enough pressure to notice the heat, the thickness. Ichigo guiltily wished he would have just given it a good grope at some point, morbidly, devouringly curious.

"So uh. You're done, or can I...?" He nudged the man's crotch with his thigh. "Because _this_ doesn't feel done, just saying."

Grimmjow tilted his hips back, away from him, pressed a hand down on his belly to pin him. "Hey, _hey_."

"Oh, come on, just thinking about eating me felt as good as getting an actual hand-job?" Ichigo protested, blushing. Grimmjow snorted. 

" _Kid_. If you shed reiatsu like that every time you nut I'm probably not gonna have to kill you and eat your corpse to survive in here after all. Did you even notice?" He must have read the answer on Ichigo's face because he snorted again, lips quirking up in mocking amusement. "See." 

"... A hand-job where you _get to orgasm_? I mean, why -- why stop there, I--" 

Ichigo forced himself to pause and breathe. His face felt so hot it was dizzying; he couldn't meet Grimmjow's eyes straight on.

"Your choice," he said more firmly when he had calmed down. "I'm not trying to be pushy, just trying to figure out how you work." 

Grimmjow rolled his eyes, regarding him lazily with his cheek still propped up in his hand. "Oh, you _are_ trying to be pushy."

"I was totally trying to be pushy," Ichigo admitted, groaning, "but it's not cool, so I'm stopping there. But... It's confusing, okay? If you, uh. It doesn't feel like a fair trade, and I'm kind of -- it's sex. It _should_ be fair, or else it's..."

He tried to find appropriate words, couldn't find any. Exploitative? Selfish? Taking advantage? Grimmjow was the one who had decided to do all that. But still, Ichigo accepting it all without even trying to return any of it was...

"... Anyway. If you're not into sex, just into -- snacking makeouts, that's cool. We can stop there."

Grimmjow sighed heavily through his nose. There was a weird look on his face, like it wasn't very funny anymore to mess with Ichigo, like it might even be starting to feel awkward.

"... I'm a fucking _hollow_ ," he reminded him, but this time his voice sounded rougher, less glib and careless. "We're not into sex the way humans or shinigami are."

Ichigo stared dumbly for a second. "Uh. I've _heard_ about Szayel."

Grimmjow blinked down at him, snorted. "Yeah, that guy was compensating for something. No, I don't mean we don't _like_ sex, I'm saying we don't want it. Like. Crave it. That's not how we fuckin' reproduce, okay? Apart from it feeling good there's no reason to bother with it. You get some hollows who get all obsessed about it but that's for fucked-up brain reasons, not natural instinct reasons."

Ichigo's brow furrowed as he puzzled through it. "Yeah but... People like feeling good? It doesn't have to be an instinct."

"People don't like feeling good that much when they know it could get them munched." He rolled his eyes. "If they were okay with dying they wouldn't hollowify in the first place."

"Huh." A wince. "Point. So... Huh." Ichigo ran a hand through his messy, sweat-stuck hair, grimaced. "I feel like I need a primer. Do you guys just... How does it work?"

It was weird when Grimmjow sat up not to have him pressed skin to skin against his side any longer. Their hip bones still touched but suddenly Ichigo remembered the cold, even if it was noticeably milder in their little hideout after all that carrying on.

"You've got those who only fuck people who are way weaker than them," Grimmjow said like he didn't care, legs crossed loosely and eyes looking away at nothing at all. "So they're not at risk and-or so they have a post-fuck snack at hand. Or who only fuck stronger, so their piddling amount of energy won't seem worth the bother. Hey, maybe you could get a second ride out of them, right, that's gotta tempt some people, if they're a good enough fuck the first time."

He put his hands behind him, leaned back; chin up, like the ceiling was interesting to gaze upon. Ichigo pushed himself up too, sat beside him, didn't say a word, feeling odd. 

" _Then_ there's those who only fuck people about equal, thinking it means there's less risk because they'll both just stay vigilant and if they gamble on dodging the first strike then it may end up with a real fight! Peace through mutually assured destruction. I'll let you guess how much of a guarantee it is."

Ichigo wished he hadn't pushed, and wished it even stronger with the next, bitter words that came out of the Arrancar's mouth. 

"... And you have those cretins who decide to _just trust each other_." He sneered.

Ichigo's voice came out quiet, already knowing the answer was no. "Any of your fraccion ever died of that one?"

A long moment of silence; and then a rasp of torn-up, prickly reiatsu, something jagged; the same rasp in his voice. 

"...Fuck off."

Ichigo was being warned not to push; he pushed anyway, because he had to.

"I think you trusted them."

Grimmjow's shoulders stiffened; his reiatsu spiked into rage, his jawbone mask clenched so tight the fangs cracked audibly. He turned his back, swinging long legs out of their pseudo-bed, like he was one second away from standing and leaving, only a fraction of second farther away from turning back around and taking a swing at Ichigo's face. And that only because of the protective shield they couldn't afford to lose.

"Grimmjow--"

" _I think they were fucking weaker and I'd already eaten chunks off them so what was the fucking point_."

Ichigo watched the line of his shoulders for a moment -- hunched, tight with fight-or-flight, nothing like the relaxed readiness of actual battle, and felt...

"Okay," he said quietly, and leaned his side into Grimmjow's wide back, tilted his head onto the man's -- Arrancar's, hollow's, enemy's -- shoulder from behind. Grimmjow went entirely stiff; the look he threw Ichigo was wild-eyed with startled incomprehension.

Ichigo rolled his eyes and nipped at the place where his neck met his shoulder, just past the collar of his shirt.

"And now comes my terrible and totally expected betrayal."

He flipped his legs around to bracket Grimmjow's waist and stuck cold feet on the inside of his thighs.

The sputtering noise Grimmjow let out had Ichigo cracking a grin; he didn't have time to make it a laugh because then the man flipped around between his legs like a greased weasel and caught him in a headlock in the same flash-fast movement. Ichigo yelled a protest, punched his chest -- didn't have enough space to wind it up enough for a solid impact -- punched him in the sternum again anyway, because why not. 

They rolled back on the mattress, bumped into the rickety wall of the shack hard enough to make it tremble; ears crushed to his skull, nose flattened, Ichigo managed to force a leg between them to kick him away and Grimmjow _still_ held on to his head, brought him along as they rolled back. Ichigo planted a foot on the floor and pushed himself up to loosen his grip --

And as he stood bent over with an adult-sized Arrancar hanging off his neck the guy curled his legs between them and rabbit-kicked him in the guts at least three or four times.

Ichigo collapsed on top of him, winded less from the brawl than from his sudden fit of laughter. 

"What the _fuck_ , Kurosaki? What the shitting bloody _fuck_ , you crazy son of a bitch--"

"You murderkicked me," Ichigo wheezed out, smushed in well-developed pectorals. "Like a _kitty_."

"... I'm gonna murder you for real starting now," Grimmjow growled. "I don't fucking _care_ that dimension will eat me, I'm gonna disembowel you and _strangle you with your own intestines_."

Ichigo managed to force his head up. "No you won't," he said, nose to Grimmjow's chin, and as the man snarled down at him he said, bland as possible, "And will you let me touch your dick already."

Blink. Blink.

He really did have gorgeous eyes, Ichigo couldn't help but notice. Not only the color but the shape of them, and the green marks underneath, and his unfair eyelashes.

"Just kidding," Ichigo added dryly. "I'll keep it in my heart like an impossible dream. The dong that got away."

Grimmjow released his neck, slumped back into the mess of straw and rags to glare sullenly up at Ichigo. His hair was all over the place -- a furious tangle, because Ichigo had put his hands in there.

"Fucking knew you were gonna think we're _friends_ now. Damn it."

"Hey, you're the one who cuddled up first." Ichigo tried to straighten up, almost knocked down the ceiling paper door, already precariously balanced. "Actually you did everything first -- got into my bed, put your mouth on me--"

The glare Grimmjow speared him was furious -- expected -- but also... Huh. Ichigo sobered up. Sitting on his haunches next to him, he linked his hands behind his neck to stretch his shoulder, giving himself a second to think it through.

"... I'm still going to fight you seriously. And if you go against humans or the Seireitei I'm absolutely going to pull my mask out and ruin you. I'm serious, I'll leave you _broken on the ground_. Just... I can't _hate_ you."

Grimmjow sneered. 

"I couldn't hate you before either. I mean, when you put an arm through Rukia, yeah, but..." He shrugged, fiddled with the ragged end of his hakama-shorts, head bowed. "I couldn't even really hate _Aizen_ in the end. That didn't stop me putting a Mugetsu through him."

"... Did you give me the 'it's not you it's me' speech just now?"

Ichigo blinked. "Um. No? ... Fuck." 

Grimmjow stared up at him for another three or four endless seconds, and then his mouth curled up at the ends. He pinched it, but in another two seconds he was laughing, shaking his head in mock-despair.

"Not even _Aizen_. Man. You're broken."

Ichigo considered it. "Yeah, probably."

Grimmjow stretched out his legs, smirked wider. "See how it is. Using and discarding me. Just in it for the necking. Kurosaki, you _cad_."

He sobered up briefly, staring straight at Ichigo. Ichigo stared back.

"Swear you won't pussy out of fighting me properly."

Ichigo nodded. "I swear." A half-smile. "But you had better not lag behind."

"Hey, hey, _hey_ , you think you're the only asshole who trains in the universe? I almost ruined you at Urahara's."

Ichigo rolled his eyes and sat back down on the bed, legs crossed, his knee touching Grimmjow's hip. "Yeah, because I started wondering why he wasn't beating you up himself. When I came in I thought you were here to kill him and the kids or something, but then I remembered he's actually terrifying."

Grimmjow looked interested. "Yeah?"

"Oh _yeah_. He was Captain of the research division before Mayuri, by the way, and it definitely wasn't only because of the science thing. He's not only strong, he's really tricky. And every time I ask to see his bankai he makes these _faces_... It's like I'm asking him to dissect me alive and eat my liver right in front of my face or something."

"That sneaky bastard," Grimmjow mused. "Okay, I'm interested now."

Ichigo snorted. "Your funeral."

He did look good with that relaxed half-smirk on his face, shoulders and back loose. Ichigo kind of wished he would have taken off the shirt at some point, but...

When Grimmjow's eyes slid downwards Ichigo followed them, trying to figure out what he gazed at with so much self-satisfaction.

"... Oh wow." Ichigo touched the red marks showing at the edge of his shorts. It didn't really hurt yet but it was going to bruise dark and keep a perfect print of Grimmjow's teeth. "Damn. I'm going to be marked up for a week."

"Makin' me want to bite you elsewhere, honestly."

A shiver went up Ichigo's spine. He pretended not to care. "--Oh? Like where?"

"Everywhere." His gaze raked back up Ichigo's chest. "Throat ain't gonna mark as it is... Hmm."

Ichigo flushed. "Okay, I'm vetoing anything that'll show over my clothes. I don't want to be stuck in my body for a week waiting for them to fade."

"I bet I could leave one _just_ under there," he mused, leaning in and hooking a single fingertip in Ichigo's high Fullbring collar." Gotta be some upside to weird new fusion powers, eh?"

"Yeah, no, I like my jugular to not be mistaken for chewing gum. Also If my dad sees anything resembling a hickey on me I may find it in myself to kill you after all."

"Cooome on, Kurosaki."

" _No_."

"I'll show you my dick. Gotta say, it's worth the price of admission."

"Oh god, stop bragging. I can't believe I let you do that shit in the first place. Talk about buyer's remorse." 

"Fuck does that mean. You loved it."

Grimmjow had ooze-crawled his way across Ichigo's lap, now had a thigh thrown across Ichigo's thighs to pin him down, and was _still_ toying with the collar. Ichigo gave him a pointed, _yeah-right_ look. "How about _your_ first time, Ichigo? Oh, yeah, we got stuck in this hell dimension, so he vored me."

"Dude, I'm offerin' a whole and entire schlong here. Do you have no romance in your soul? Next time remind me to bring my own seasonings, cripes."

\--

"Still no?"

"Hnnmm... Convince me a bit more."

\--

"How come you're fine with your tongue in my mouth and not your dick though?"

"Dude, you bite off some skin or a bit of my tongue it'll grow back."

"And your penis won't?"

"I don't want it to _have_ to! Are you even a man, why do I gotta explain _that_ to you."

\--

"I don't think that's what they mean by 'eating ass'."

A nip at the top of his ass; two hands coming up his thighs to cup and squeeze from underneath, digging deep into the muscle. "On the upside now I'm really looking forward to fucking you."

Ichigo tried not to start humping the blankets. He kind of failed. "S-seasonings?" he joked, choking on his own lust.

A long body flowed against his bared back, pinned him thighs to chest with nothing but its weight -- his wrists were tugged up with the ropes, pinned there too. Grimmjow was hard now. They still didn't have lube and it still wasn't happening -- not in here, not now -- but Ichigo thought about it anyway, moaned quietly with thoughts of it.

The hot mouth rooting at the base of his skull only registered as a danger a fraction of second before Grimmjow sealed his lips to suck hard and bit down on his nape, laughing against his skin like he'd gotten away with something.

Ichigo did heel-kick him for that one, but after that he melted back into the pseudo-mattress. He could... he could probably pass it off as a weird brawling-with-a-hollow thing. Probably. Hopefully.

That or not get into a fight with anything that required he leave his body for the next two weeks.

Okay so he was fucked. 

"Next time I'm topping."

"Well you sure as shit ain't topping now, so shut up and let me hotdog you."

Ichigo groaned his embarrassment at Grimmjow's crassness, and then pushed his hips back into him. 

\--

They'd slept again, taken a break several hours long to pace around the room, remake the bed, have some alone time, meditate with their swords (verdict: Zangetsu was as useful in this situation as udders on a bull and Pantera was worse), and then they'd gone back to bed for banter and gropes. They almost had a real, no holds barred fistfight over Grimmjow's treatment of Inoue during her kidnapping, and then they had more, angrier makeouts.

Then Ichigo figured out that he wasn't the only one who wanted to avoid breaking the ropes and entangled Grimmjow's wrists in Zangetsu's.

Grimmjow was sprawled on his side and heckling as Ichigo fucked his thighs when they heard Urahara.

"Hello, hello the little shack in space!" he called out, pushing the front door open; the planks creaked under his weight. "Looking for an angry young man and an angrier young hollow..." 

... Ichigo was going to fling himself in the void of the precipice world head first and float away for all eternity. Yep. Great plan.

"... What a quaint little cabin. Kurosaki-san? Are you in there?"

Ichigo gave Grimmjow a horrified look; the utter bastard arched his eyebrows with a total lack of concern and then started smirking.

Hissing, Ichigo snatched up his hakama shorts and yanked them back up his thighs in a hurry. " _Grimmjow no_ \--"

Grimmjow opened his mouth, no doubt to say something Ichigo was gonna have to for-real murder him over.

"What are you doing," asked a woman's voice that was very definitely not Yoruichi's.

Then again Ichigo wasn't sure he would have prefered Yoruichi to a stranger right now.

Grimmjow had paled, brutally sobered; he quickly detangled his wrists and borderline teleported back into his pants. His shirt was a dead loss, though -- torn down the front during their latest tussle.

He shoved the panels off; the little shelter crumbled around them as Ichigo was still fixing his top, face scarlet. "Halibel, what the _fuck_ are you doing here?"

"I called her, of course!" Urahara said, smiling meaninglessly with his eyes noting down every single visible detail. "Stabilizing this dimension takes a _lot_ of raw power, you know. Luckily she was amenable to joining me the second I brought it up; had she been any slower to act I fear the two of you may have gotten stuck here another month."

"Uh. Thanks, Halibel," Ichigo said awkwardly, extracting himself from his messed-up nest. The previous Tres Espada was tall and strong-looking, mask entirely covering the lower half of her face, and her resting reiryoku had the kind of pressure he would expect from the oldest of the captains. Definitely stronger than Grimmjow...

"Yeah, uh." Grimmjow made a face. "Owe you one, I guess."

"You owe me two." She glanced at Ichigo, expressionless, then back at the other Espada. "I didn't send you out to lunch."

"Oh, ugh. Am I supposed to _apologize_?"

"What do you think you've got to apologize for?"

Ichigo watched the two Arrancars, mildly fascinated. Grimmjow was all grumpy and embarrassed; he would have expected him defiant, challenging, even hostile, but it seemed he did agree she was his boss for now. How weird. 

"... Fighting Kurosaki around an open senkaimon," he eventually settled on. "That was fucking stupid."

"It was. Now I've lost time I was trying to save by sending you."

Grimmjow's face contorted through a series of grimaces, eventually settled on resigned. "... Hffgh goddamnit. _Fine_. Name your price."

"I'll decide when we're back," she said. "Anything save your death or dismemberment."

Ichigo arched his eyebrows, alarmed, but Grimmjow just shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets like a sullen teen. "You're gonna make me do _politics_ , aren't you."

She didn't answer, just blinked slowly and then turned her back to walk back out without any more acknowledgement. Grimmjow snatched up his sword, ripped off the knots, and went stomping after her, shirtless and dishevelled. 

Urahara watched them go, a hand before his mouth to hide -- badly -- a smile, and then Ichigo figured out he was now alone with the guy, but it was too late to escape.

"Kurosaki-san, I am _shocked_. Shocked!"

"Right," Ichigo muttered as he went to the other end of the room for his own sword, studiously avoiding facing the man. "Blackmail material for the next ten years, how dreadful."

"Truly heart-rending," the man agreed solemnly. Ichigo could feel his eyes on him; he hitched up his shoulders, knowing the nape of his neck was marked too high for his collar to hide. "I take it everything was consensual, enjoyable and instructive for both participants?"

... Oh. Yeah, Ichigo couldn't get pissy about him asking _that_. "Mm-hm," he agreed, face heating up, and made himself walk to the door. Behind their little patch of dead ground was a corridor of golden light, sheer walls to hold back the darkness. 

"Good! Very good." He followed Ichigo into the corridor. "Shall I procure a private room for you two to meet discreetly then? There's lots of space at the shop--"

Ichigo cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out, " _Hey_ , Grimmjow! Remember how he wouldn't show me his bankai? How about making him _have to_?"

"It's a date!" Grimmjow shot back carelessly over his shoulder. 

As Urahara tittered, Ichigo tripped over nothing, eyes gone wide.

"Only as long as you put out and fight me afterwards, though." 

\-- Oh. That kind of date. Heh. 

Well, there was a relatively good chance it would still end in more traditional date activities either way. And even if it didn't, it was going to be a good fight. Ichigo hadn't been pushed since the Fullbringers; he was looking forward to it. 

Humming under his breath, he stepped out of the senkaimon.


End file.
